Ok, please response with links if at all possible to case law or something else official that might help me out. Heres the deal: An employee works for a company that uses xyz.com as its domain name. The employee received an email address while employeed there. The employee was terminated. The email account was deleted. The website is setup in such way that all emails that don't corespond to a valid email account get forwarded to .... so in this case go to which is monitored. Does the employee have any rights to the account or any emails that may still come in to it? Thanks so much!!! -JRW
I don't have time to lookup URL's to post for specific examples but with a little Google you'll find this is related to privacy rights over email contents through a work provided email account, and the courts constantly uphold that the employer provides email access as a tool for the employee to do their job with, however the employer owns that tool and may do as they please with it. So basically no, the former employee isn't going to have any rights to the account at all. Just search Google for "employee privacy and email" and you should find tons of information related to your questions.
Thanks for the reply. I have found links having to due with privacy. Thats not really the problem here. He thinks we should have to send all the emails to him that come addressed to him... that we are 'stealing' his business! -JRW
But it's really the same issue in my eyes. As an employer you provided Internet and email access as a business tool. Once an employee leaves your company he/she has no further rights to that tool. If you own a garage that has hydraulic lifts installed in the work bays for jacking cars up, and a mechanic quits working for you he wouldn't have any claims to those lifts if he wanted to continue working on cars from his backyard... they're your tools. Same concept with email accounts. The company owns them. That's why individuals always lose court cases involving privacy in work emails, and I really believe the same principals are at work here with your situation. If it were me I'd tell him to bug off, but archive any messages that do come addressed to him just in-case he would be silly enough to push the issue into court. Good luck with it.